| After a six-year legal fight, Harvard University finally agreed to cede daguerreotypes of two enslaved people to their descendant Tamara Lanier. Held for nearly two centuries in the university’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, the 15 photographs of Renty and Delia Taylor are likely to be transferred to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Hyperallergic has closely followed Lanier’s battle to #FreeRenty since its beginning, including a special edition in 2021, which is worth revisiting. This week, our News Editor Valentina Di Liscia also speaks with Lanier about her historic victory in a moving interview. Give it a read. Meanwhile, the Venice Biennale announces its 2026 theme, In Minor Keys, which commits to the vision of curator Koyo Kouoh, whose passing earlier this month at age 57 shocked and grieved the art community. Shoutout to the 61st Biennale team in Venice — which includes friends and colleagues Rasha Salti and Siddhartha Mitter — for authoring such a sensitive and beautifully written statement for the international exhibition. Also this week, Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian reviews a remarkable performance by artist Joiri Minaya in Philadelphia, and Seph Rodney offers a nuanced reading of Rashid Johnson’s retrospective A Poem for Deep Thinkers at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. And there’s much more, as usual, including John Yau on Xingzi Gu’s vulnerable portraits of androgynous youth, Michael Glover on Henri Michaux’s psychedelic drawings, Natalie Haddad on Kiah Celeste’s tactile sculptures, and Zach Feuer in conversation with Diné weaver Marilou Schultz. We need your help to keep Hyperallergic independent and unflinching. Please join our growing community of Hyperallergic Members today for as little as $6.67 a month ($80/year). I spend more than that a day just for breathing in New York City. Have a great weekend! — Hakim Bishara, Managing Editor | | |
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| | Tamara Lanier, who sued the school in 2019 over daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors held in its museum, called the outcome “a turning point in American history.” | Valentina Di Liscia
In the aftermath of the school’s agreement to relinquish the daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors, Lanier spoke to Hyperallergic about her protracted battle for justice and a new home for the photographs. | Valentina Di Liscia |
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SPONSORED | | | | | The Los Angeles theater, now in its 60th year, works to cultivate, invite, and produce authentic stories told from within the AAPI communities. Learn more |
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NEWS THIS WEEK | | | Attuned with the late Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh’s vision, the Venice Biennale has announced the theme of its 2026 edition, In Minor Keys. Foundations and donors are stepping in to fill the art funding gap amid the cancellation of millions in government grants by the Trump administration. Evanston, Illinois, residents are campaigning in support of a Jewish high school educator who was asked to take down a protest print referencing anti-war Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 1971 essay, “Dissent.” Protesters targeted Whitney Museum board members “tied to genocide, militarism, and apartheid” and accused the institution of censorship after it canceled a performance about Palestinian mourning. An appeals court dismissed a lawsuit brought by a photographer who claimed that Lil Nas X copied poses and artistic concepts used in his Instagram posts. |
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FROM OUR CRITICS | | | The artist’s performance reflects the evolution of its garden site from starkly colonial origins to a different type of cultural cross-pollination. | Hrag Vartanian
The androgynous adolescents in Gu’s paintings are people who have interior lives but are not always sure which way to go. | John Yau
The poet turned to psychedelics to discover the nature of his own consciousness, producing inscrutable drawings that alternately vibrate until they blur, or wash gently to and fro. | Michael Glover
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| | | There is much reading going on in A Poem for Deep Thinkers at the Guggenheim, but I wonder where the apprehended knowledge shows up. | Seph Rodney
Her gorgeous, tactile sculptures are not just symbolic of human lives, but reflections of embodiment in all of its fragility and resilience. | Natalie Haddad
Beyond Adornment explores what the depiction of jewelry in art says about adornment, artists, and their subjects, from Charlemagne to Frida Kahlo. | Aida Amoako
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ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC | | | Marilou Schultz, a math teacher and fourth-generation weaver, pushes the boundaries of the art form by combining technological aesthetics and Diné techniques. | Zach Feuer
The anonymous artist’s latest may have a personal touch, but it’s still another installment in what feels like a series of works stifled by surveillance and media fatigue. | Rhea Nayyar
Tina Piña Trachtenburg is set on finding the culprits behind a recent surge in pigeon disappearances throughout the city. | Isa Farfan
“When the spirit moves me and the work goes well, I dance.” | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
This week: archiving BLM protest art, Walt Whitman selfies, the legacy of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, being Black at art school, hummingbird evolution, and much more. |
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